Eighteen
by schizophrenic-susurrus
Summary: Young-do has some things to figure out before he stops running away. Second part of the series following My Father's Son. Some references may not make sense if you haven't read that first.


Frozen yogurt is surprisingly delicious.

The first time I try it, I am eighteen in a house facing the Californian sea.

It is three years after everything and we are slowly mending at the seams.

Despite the breeze, it is swelteringly hot, with the sun rays relentlessly beating down on the white marble and the reflections making black spots dance before my eyes.

I glare at you when you laugh, a flash of white in tan skin, as you hand me a plastic cup.

The perfect harmony of tart and sweet, the yogurt slides welcomingly down my throat.

Your smile is blindingly bright and I no longer want to run.

.~.~.

The first thing I learn in the kitchens is that I don't get to decide what I learn.

Kuroda-san is a good teacher, but a strict one. The good ones usually are.

It starts with vegetables, then meat, then fish. Slicing and cutting and chopping and filleting. Salads and soups. Then frying, grilling, roasting, and sautéing, before I am moved into the pastry kitchen. The days pass in a frenzy of mixing and whisking and kneading and beating. The smattering of flour on my shirt comforts me, as does the smell of caramelizing sugar and congealed egg under my nails.

Flour and sugar and egg. Don't they remind you of us?

.~.~.

I run at first like I told you I would.

I'd always thought it would get easier with time.

Turns out I am wrong and it doesn't.

It tires me out pretty quickly, all the dodging and hiding and avoiding, but I do it, because you are right behind me, and if I stop…

If I stop, I'm scared I will no longer be me.

.~.~.

Myung-soo comes over one day.

I'm still running, so I make him wait as I finish greasing up my soufflé pan before handing it over to another commis.

I bring him up to my room where he hands me a stack of photographs. One is rolling black asphalt, another a sparkling sea.

I look through them until I see a tanned neck and a broad back and I toss them at him.

He shoves them back at my chest as I sneer. He tells me to stop being a coward.

But aren't we all cowards at eighteen?

.~.~.

Flour and sugar and eggs remind me of you and her and me and when it does I visit the seaside.

It's cold there even in the summer and Eun-sang's mother always invites me inside.

She listens when I tell her everything, even when I tell her nothing.

Eun-sang is there sometimes, and she listens too.

After a while, I stop counting the number of times 'California' appears in mother's notebook. I also pretend not to notice the same words always displayed over Eun-sang's chest.

I let Eun-sang tell me about California, about how easy it is to love, while I watch the faraway smile on her face.

When I'm with them, eighteen seems an age away.

I don't tell them this, but when I'm with them, I stop running.

.~.~.

When Kuroda-san decides I'm ready, he brings me to the communard. There, I learn how to extract the flavor of anchovies and kelp while experimenting with the ratio of sugar and soy sauce and hot pepper paste.

The red sauce bubbles with a sweet and spicy aroma and he pats me on the back.

.~.~.

Father asks after Mother.

When he does, I tell him what I can and I tell him what I can't.

Father also asks after the business, which I now run. He gets an odd look on his face whenever we talk about it.

I imagine it is resentment and says this to Mother. She tells me it's a mix of that and pride.

We eat my rice cakes in silence while I think it over.

.~.~.

Mother tells me that youth is fleeting. She tells me that growing

up will hurt, that I will end up chasing after what has been. I scoff. I say that I'm already an adult.

I say that just because you haven't been around doesn't mean I didn't grow up.

Mother gets this sad, quiet look on her face and I regret it immediately.

I want to explain, but then she smiles and I learn that adults can be forgiven too.

Eighteen is a good age.

.~.~.

The flight takes 12 hours and 26 minutes but I don't sleep.

I don't sleep in the car either.

Everything in California is different. Everything seems bigger. Brighter.

You drive in silence as I watch the asphalt roll by.

The very air smells alive.

.~.~.

The sauce is bubbling when I tell you about pigeons and peacocks.

I tell you I like peacocks more, and though pigeons can sometimes be distracting and make you forget, they can never be better than peacocks, though peacocks make people want to run away sometimes.

You look amused and tell me I'm definitely a peacock.

Two days after I get home, a postcard and a sweater arrives in the mail. It's a peacock with its back to the camera and I pull it on even though it's the middle of summer.

There's a single line on the postcard in neat handwriting and I scoff when I see that it's in English.

Turns out you like peacocks more too.

.~.~.

There's an invitation somewhere on its way to me, though I don't know it yet. It's like all the other invitations from Bo-na and Chan-Young, except this one is six months too early and it's not like the others.

It is an invitation to an engagement, which will be followed by a fairy tale wedding, then perhaps, a child.

I idly wonder what happens when the fairy tales end. What do happily-ever-afters become when the years start flying by?

You laugh a little and say maybe it's that thing where eighteen is forever, your voice crackling around the edges as it bounces between satellites.

It's the perfect harmony of tart and sweet.


End file.
